Anne Hathaway Talks Pressures Of Adapting ‘One Day’

Anne Hathaway knows you have your doubts about her, but she’s ready to impress you with “One Day.”

The actress is no stranger to adapting well-loved literature to the big screen, having starred in “The Princess Diaries” and “Brokeback Mountain.” But having to speak in an English accent and co-helm a romance novel that fans were so protective of certainly put the pressure on when she was filming “One Day.”

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Fortunately, the response from fans has been positive so far. MTV News caught up with Hathaway
and her co-star Jim Sturgess recently, and “The Dark Knight Rises” actress said that people have received her performance in the flick positively.

“I’ve had people come up to me who have seen it actually and they say, ‘I didn’t think you could pull it off.’ And people feel inclined to tell me that they really had no faith in me whatsoever,” she said with a laugh. “So far, it’s ended with a, ‘But you surprised me, and I really enjoyed your performance.’ But I’m just waiting for that person to come up and say, ‘Well I knew you couldn’t do it.’ ”

She added that the pressure was amplified by the fact that when she and Sturgess were filming in London, Hathaway saw people all across the city reading the book. The cover of the novel’s U.K. edition is orange, and Hathaway said it would freak her out to see “One Day” so prominently featured in every bookstore she walked into.

“At night, it kind of lights the streets of London,” Sturgess joked.

People who want to walk into “One Day” spoiler-free might not be too psyched to hear that both Hathaway and Sturgess say they prefer “ill-fated, tear-inducing” romantic films as opposed to ones that end happily ever after. That news certainly doesn’t bode well for the love story between their onscreen characters.

While Sturgess said he feels that way because he’s “just cynical,”
Hathaway explained that she feels tragic romantic stories stay with a person longer.

“If something’s happily ever after, yay, you’re happy for them, but what else do you feel about it? When something rips your guts out, you’re more inclined to remember it,” she explained.